Basic Mechanisms in the Control of Cognition

我们试图最小化努力的想法在解释各种认知现象（例如，决策、注意力定向、记忆），并且被认为是人类认知的基本原则。因此，理解个体如何判断与认知行为相关的努力将是理解人类认知的基本组成部分。拟议的研究将为这一问题提供新的见解。我们将开发一个创新的理论框架，其中努力的判断被视为基于可用线索的推断（例如，刺激取向）。这些推断可以被表征为更加基于信念（即，从关于思维如何工作的先验理论和直觉中导出）或更多基于经验（即，来自在线处理）。此外，在这个框架内，这些推论可以驱动认知的战略调节（即，认知控制）。提出了一系列的实验，将通过两个广泛的目标，发展这一理论框架。第一部分将研究个人在判断努力程度时所使用的信息，以及调节这些信息使用的因素。特别是，我们将专注于如何对认知控制系统（即，负责管理低级过程的系统）和时间（即，完成一个认知行为需要多长时间）被个体用来判断努力（目标1）。第二个目标将探讨如何判断的认知努力转化为努力相关的控制功能（目标2）。在这里，我们将重点关注卸载认知的决定（即，用一些物理动作代替内部/认知处理）或走神（即，将注意力从任务中分离出来）。从这项研究中获得的新知识将使我们更深入地了解认知控制的基本机制。这项研究也将具有重要的现实意义。例如，随着我们的认知生活越来越多地与认知技术相结合，我们对如何使用这些辅助工具来卸载认知的理解将变得越来越重要。除了在知识方面的变革性收获外，拟议的实验将为大量受训人员提供一个极好的培训机会，学习与自然科学研究有关的广泛技能。这项研究将为加拿大带来许多短期和长期的好处，包括（1）促进我们对认知控制的基本理解，（2）培养能够通过研究及其他职业影响我们的社会和经济生活的受训人员（例如，用户体验设计），以及（3）开发与许多应用领域相关的知识（即，人-技术互动、教育）。

The idea that we attempt to minimize effort features prominently in explanations of a wide variety of cognitive phenomena (e.g., decision-making, attentional orienting, memory) and is considered a basic principle of human cognition. Thus, understanding how individuals' judge the effort associated with a cognitive act would represent a fundamental building block in understanding human cognition. The proposed research will provide novel insight into this problem. We will develop an innovative theoretical framework wherein judgments of effort are viewed as inferences based on available cues (e.g., stimulus orientation). These inferences can be characterized as either more belief-based (i.e., derived from a priori theories and intuitions about how the mind works) or more experience-based (i.e., derived from online processing). Furthermore, within this framework, these inferences can drive the strategic regulation of cognition (i.e., cognitive control). A series of experiments are proposed that will develop this theoretical framework through two broad objectives. The first will examine the information used by individuals in making judgments of effort and the factors that modulate the use of this information. In particular, we will focus on how the demands placed on the cognitive control system (i.e., the system responsible for the management of low-level processes) and time (i.e., how long it takes to complete a cognitive act) are used by individuals in making judgments of effort (Objective 1). The second objective will investigate how judgments of cognitive effort are translated into effort-related control functions (Objective 2). Here we will focus on the decision to offload cognition (i.e., replace internal/cognitive processing with some physical action) or to mind wander (i.e., disengage attention from a task). The new knowledge gained from this research will provide a deeper understanding of the basic mechanisms underlying the control of cognition. This research will also have important real-world implications. For example, as our cognitive lives become increasingly integrated with cognitive technologies, our understanding of how we use these aids to offload cognition will become increasingly important. In addition to the transformative gains in knowledge, the proposed experiments will provide an excellent training opportunity for a large number of trainees to learn a broad range of skills relevant to research in the natural sciences. This research will have numerous short and long-term benefits for Canada, including (1) advancing our basic understanding of cognitive control, (2) developing trainees who can impact our social and economic lives through careers in research and beyond (e.g., user-experience design), and (3) developing knowledge that will be relevant to a number of applied domains (i.e., human-technology interaction, education).